


Watch the Stars That Tremble With Love and Hope

by Rehfan



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Anal sex - implied, Blow Job, Desire, French Kissing, Hate Sex, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:15:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5098784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehfan/pseuds/Rehfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eobard is fresh off helping The Flash round up the Royal Flush Gang and is winding down at home.</p><p>Now if he could only shake the memory of Barry Allen's smile.</p><p>(tangent story for S1 Ep11: The Sound and the Fury)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch the Stars That Tremble With Love and Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Nessun dorma! as sung by Luciano Pavarotti](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/152501) by Giacomo Puccini. 



> While I will always favor Pavarotti's version of "Nessun Dorma", it is Placido Domingo singing in the original show.  
> However, since Pavarotti's version is more famous, have this link to listen to as you read:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VATmgtmR5o4

He played it like chess. He was always good at the long game. Perhaps it was because of his perspective on things. But more, he thought, it was his love for the game itself.

He had never thought of the creation of Barry Allen as a game at first. It only became that as he realized the chess pieces he had to maneuver in order for everything to culminate in the fall of the king. He smiled to himself as he drove home after their capture of the Royal Flush Gang. They had had playing cards on their motorcycle helmets, but that too, he treated like chess, moving his red chess piece to capture the black. “Checkmate,” he had said over the comm when it was all said and done.

It had been fun. He had even admitted to Barry - to Barry! - that it was a bit of a rush… He shook his head as the motor stopped and he wheeled himself into his home.

As soon as the doors closed behind him he exhaled, as if the level of existence required in the outside world was a burden, the mask he wore too cumbersome and unwieldy. He wondered how he mustered the energy every day. But he had little choice: his destiny and Barry’s were intertwined forever, circling around and around like an ouroboros without end. There had been too much time gone as it was. But the final move, his checkmate, would be coming soon.

He stood and stretched, unfolding and elongating until he felt himself again. He could breathe better here. The house was comfortable, but it was in no way a home. Eobard shuddered at the simple thought. He liked his tile and stone, his stainless steel and his glass. The gigantic fireplace. The simple furniture. They were solid, knowable. They were elegant and functional. They appealed to his soul.

The rain beat against the skylight. He drowned it out with the flick of a button. He was suddenly surrounded by Placido Domingo singing “Nessun dorma!”. His grandfather had introduced him to opera and of all the ones he was dragged to when he was a child, Puccini’s _Turandot_ stuck.

As he made his way into the kitchen, the libretto of Calaf’s aria came to him, translated from the Italian:

_Nobody shall sleep!_

_Nobody shall sleep!_

_Even you, o Princess,_

_in your cold room,_

_watch the stars,_

_that tremble with love and with hope._

_But my secret is hidden within me,_

_my name no one shall know…_

_No! No!_

_On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines._

_And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!_

_(No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.)_

_Vanish, o night!_

_Set, stars! Set, stars!_

_At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!_

 

He knew that in the opera, Calaf, a secret prince, was bidding for the hand of the cold, aloof, uncaring Princess Turandot. He also knew that this was the last bit of Turandot that Puccini wrote before dying, leaving the opera to be finished by… lesser men, shall we say?

He sighed again and poured himself a drink. Opera was always better with a touch of bourbon. It helped lift the weight of the responsibility of guiding the future into place. The liquid passed his lips and there was nothing but the slow burn, the music, and Barry Allen’s bright smile behind his closed eyes. _Damn him._

He wanted to hate him with all the fervor of three centuries from that moment, but he couldn’t. This was Infant Flash, trusting, loyal, kind, brave. To have the greatest hand in the creation of his greatest enemy went beyond irony and moved into philosophy of existence. What came first? The Flash or the Reverse-Flash? Who created whom?

He sat on the chaise in the half-darkness and set his drink upon the side table beside him. The rain fell in sheets on the glass above him and he watched it mutely as Domingo sang of love and hope. He had always fancied Turandot’s side of things in the opera: challenge all suitors, test them, make sure they are good enough - or better - do what you could to deter them completely and keep your heart safe. He was the cold prince in the tower watching the stars as Barry sang to him about winning his heart. The smile behind his eyelids hadn’t faded in those few minutes and Eobard took a moment to consider it.

He couldn’t hear Barry’s voice, only the music as it swelled and rose, covering him and his secret. He was the chess master of this particular game and he had only a few moves left to go before he could put the king in check. The only thing that could stop him….

_No._

Barry Allen would not get to him. That sweet smile was the smile of his enemy, not his friend, and certainly not a lover. He was so young. So impetuous. So lost and seeking his guidance in so many things. And he would hate to hear it someday, but Barry was his creation. The moment would come when all would be revealed and he could show how the pieces were arranged on the board. He could dissolve the silence between them that made Barry his.

Perhaps he could tell him with a kiss. Press him up against a wall, feel the line of him, wiry and strong all along his body. Grip his hips with bruising fingers and kiss him with a heat he had been holding back all these long months. All these years. All these centuries. True, he hated him with every fiber of his being, but he was also his creator, his Pygmalion. And didn’t Pygmalion fall in love with his creation, Galatea? Didn’t he hold her up as the finest example of womanhood ever to exist? Didn’t the gods smile and make her real just for him?

Vanish, o night… Set, stars! Yes, let the stars set in their alignment. Let Harrison Wells disappear forever and let Eobard Thawne exist in his place. Let Barry Allen taste his kiss and let his tongue lap inside the heat of his mouth. Let that sweet smile be replaced with raw want. Let glass be broken. Let tile be cracked. Let fire extinguish to be replaced by fires from within, no, bonfires! Holocausts! Let it be rent apart to be put back together again and let everyone know that Eobard Thawne did it for himself and for Barry Allen.

Let him strip the boy bare and map every inch of him with eyes, fingertips, mouth. Let him set Barry ablaze with these. For the tools of the forge are hot and creation is darkly beautiful work. And Barry would be dark and beautiful and want personified, sweat pouring from him, eyes crackling with fire, body eager for every slight caress. The sounds that escaped him would be for Eobard alone. He would kiss away the name Harrison from his lips and replace it with his own searing seal, hiding the good doctor, only to bury him later, once and for always.

And the thought of the freedom of that moment made his mouth water. He slaked his thirst with another burning swallow of the liquor and let it linger in his mouth the way he would take in Barry’s cock: slowly, reverently, respectfully, calculating in his control. He would watch Barry fall apart underneath him as he sucked and licked, building toward the curl of tension in the boy’s belly. He would be delicious. He would be exquisite. The earth would move. Let it. Let it all go to hell as Barry gave himself over completely, became truly his.

And let him take in Eobard’s scent, know the pressure of his body against his own, realize that his creator was also his destroyer. Let him open up and splay legs wide to take him in. Let him drown only to be given the breath of life again. Let him tremble like the leaf and moan like the wind. Let everything else fall away. And in that moment, let him find his own little death, crying out a false name on a true heart.

_I did this for you, Barry. I did this for us. Take it all from me for I have given you everything._

And after the deed is done, let every mark on Barry Allen’s body remain there, a festering wound under healing flesh. Let it burn into him and seal him as Eobard’s forever. Allow it to live on, past even the century that Eobard called home. There would be no Flash without him. There would be no scarlet speedster, no savior. In the annals of time it would show that The Flash was all Eobard’s doing; that Eobard Thawne was the victor who held dominion over all.

_I will win!_

_I will win!_

_I will win!_


End file.
